Latest possibilities for Castle deco...

Hi all...
I finally managed to get a Castle about a year ago, and I'm ready to sit down and do a serious deco redo... Really serious... Which is why I'm here.... Looking for help and advice...Here's what I want to do:
I want one floor ( whatever floor is the one that would be visible to a passerby outside) to be one huge garden with ponds, trees, grass/paths/flowers, sitting areas - you get the idea. The entire castle square, one big garden... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that this is only possible as the 2nd floor created with goza mats or something, using ladders to place and basically just a large pain in the ass to do.. Right?

But I'll do it, as long as I am confident that it can be done... Which is why I'm here...

Looking at the thread above showing Endrik's castle, I assume that the level shown is the "roof"...
Also, how many levels can a Castle have now that the courtyards are up for lockdowns (hence lockdowns above ground level)?
Would it be possible to have MORE than one floor that is complete like Endrik's?

With my current castle I could go 4 'walkable' floors above the normal roof of the Castle (A 5th floor would be possible, but could not climb that high so would be decoration only) . Having said that, the time and patience that would be required would be huge!

You also have to factor in your lock-down count - Trying to decorate and cover that space. Each floor would have potentially 900+ lock-downs. Particularly if you decided, as I would if I undertook such an endeavor, to cover at least one floor with Grass & Snow tiles so I can finally build mini town I have always dreamed of - A 30 by 30 tile mini village - now that would awesome. (I do like how you can walk on raised Grass tiles just like Goza mats).

You would be factoring in probably 2500 - 3000 additional lock-downs in decorations and add-ons.

Also For me, the other problem would be trying to locate 900+ grass and snow tiles without bankrupting myself

Perhaps you might want to see what I had done to my Craft Hall before I traded it away. This was done using ladders and pretty much closing in the second floor open courtyards with Goza mats. I was able to put Raised Garden beds in there as well as a bridge on the North and South which allowed you to walk up into the gardens... Looked amazing.

Stratics Veteran

How did you do the Globe of Sosaria in the se-corner? I tried that once, but destroyed the globe in the process and never tried again after that failure. I have a few globes left, deeded, and imagining something like 2 char statues holding the globe high in the air. Could you please give a step by step instruction? Pretty please, MalagAste! Thank you!

How did you do the Globe of Sosaria in the se-corner? I tried that once, but destroyed the globe in the process and never tried again after that failure. I have a few globes left, deeded, and imagining something like 2 char statues holding the globe high in the air. Could you please give a step by step instruction? Pretty please, MalagAste! Thank you!

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Step by step instructions.... Oh dear. Was a royal pain in the ..... you know....

First what you need are at least 2 ladders and about 10 Goza mats... Select your desired location by placing the globe where it will fit..... You absolutely MUST have at LEAST 2 levels above you to work with.... it has to be OPEN.... I'll demonstrate on the top of a castle tower just like in the picture... this may take me awhile to post so be patient.

Ok so here goes.....

Once you have your spot worked out you place your ladders like so…….. I use two as it makes it much easier to see what you’re doing….

I use north castle ladders and place them like so….. This way you only have to place the two for now to get your goza mats set…. Run up to the top of each ladder and target yourself with a goza mat…. Good thing about Castle ladders is you can actually drop 2 Gozas at the top…
Now you need to raise all the gozas from both ladders up so they are all even with one another….

Now comes the “Tricky” part….. you need to raise up ladders 2 levels…. So you are WAY above your project…… This can be hard but once you get a second level up you can place your globe on your new raised platform…….

The “Trick” now comes in dropping the gozas from under the globe…… this is tricky…. But the EC REALLY helps here as you can specifically target goza mats……

Now as you move the gozas you’ll notice that the globe separates into 4 separate pieces…… this is the important step….. you can NOT destroy the southernmost corner of the globe….. this will destroy the spinny ball you need…. Lock down the ball and raise it up as high as you like…. But drop the southernmost corner to the floor….. the two sides you can either destroy or drop with the other one….. You’ll notice in my picture that I placed large hedges around mine…… this hid it very well ….. but before I did that I placed 9 Gozas and raised them up….. yes there were those 4 gozas I originally placed UNDER my Globe……. This is important as after you lower the globe you can’t see them anymore you you need to use tags to raise them….. once I got them up one level…… all 9 tiles….. I placed an altar on top of them and the hedge underneath….. I then destroyed ALL the goza mats but the 2 I wanted my statues on and then placed the two statues and lowered my globe from the very top of my ladder so that it was in their hands….. hope that helps…. But it’s VERY tricky.

The lovely thing about UO is if you are "above" an item you can always raise it UP to you.... you can also always lower it as far as the ground will let you...... if you are above it....... if you are below an item you can only lower it to the ground or raise it to the top of the level you are on.....

Stratics Veteran

Wow! Just wow! Incredible work. Thank you! You've put a lot of work in that instructions. I just printed it all out and reserved a few hours this evening for work on my flying globe. Will post a screenshot after I'm done.

Stratics VeteranStratics LegendCampaign Supporter

Step by step instructions.... Oh dear. Was a royal pain in the ..... you know....

First what you need are at least 2 ladders and about 10 Goza mats... Select your desired location by placing the globe where it will fit..... You absolutely MUST have at LEAST 2 levels above you to work with.... it has to be OPEN.... I'll demonstrate on the top of a castle tower just like in the picture... this may take me awhile to post so be patient.

Ok so here goes.....

Once you have your spot worked out you place your ladders like so…….. I use two as it makes it much easier to see what you’re doing….

I use north castle ladders and place them like so….. This way you only have to place the two for now to get your goza mats set…. Run up to the top of each ladder and target yourself with a goza mat…. Good thing about Castle ladders is you can actually drop 2 Gozas at the top…
Now you need to raise all the gozas from both ladders up so they are all even with one another….

Now comes the “Tricky” part….. you need to raise up ladders 2 levels…. So you are WAY above your project…… This can be hard but once you get a second level up you can place your globe on your new raised platform…….

The “Trick” now comes in dropping the gozas from under the globe…… this is tricky…. But the EC REALLY helps here as you can specifically target goza mats……

Now as you move the gozas you’ll notice that the globe separates into 4 separate pieces…… this is the important step….. you can NOT destroy the southernmost corner of the globe….. this will destroy the spinny ball you need…. Lock down the ball and raise it up as high as you like…. But drop the southernmost corner to the floor….. the two sides you can either destroy or drop with the other one….. You’ll notice in my picture that I placed large hedges around mine…… this hid it very well ….. but before I did that I placed 9 Gozas and raised them up….. yes there were those 4 gozas I originally placed UNDER my Globe……. This is important as after you lower the globe you can’t see them anymore you you need to use tags to raise them….. once I got them up one level…… all 9 tiles….. I placed an altar on top of them and the hedge underneath….. I then destroyed ALL the goza mats but the 2 I wanted my statues on and then placed the two statues and lowered my globe from the very top of my ladder so that it was in their hands….. hope that helps…. But it’s VERY tricky.

The lovely thing about UO is if you are "above" an item you can always raise it UP to you.... you can also always lower it as far as the ground will let you...... if you are above it....... if you are below an item you can only lower it to the ground or raise it to the top of the level you are on.....

Ok I was also asked about a step by step to making the seriously cool soulforge that is on the other tower there so here goes:

Is a royal Pain but you need to actually Do the outside color first...... drop down Gozas to cover your whole Forge I believe it's 6x6 tiles..... or something like that... 4x4 maybe...... anyway you drop all your tiles then like I said with the Globe you need to raise those tiles up using 2 story ladders..... because you actually have to raise them OVER one story high...... But the first outside ring of Forge you put up on the goza's first..... up about 8 or 10 clicks with the housing tool.... then you drop all the parts of the Forge you want to "keep.... down to the floor....... do NOT destroy your goza mats as you will have a hell of a time putting them back with the forge in the way...

Then once you have those all down to the ground destroy the center of your forge.... NOT the Goza's..... then level all your gozas up as high as you can the top of 2 stories.... otherwise it won't let you place the Forge.... Then place the plain forge or whatever you want for the center.... I'd toyed with the idea of doing the crimson in the center would also I think be cool looking...... anyway then once again lower now the center of the Forge and then destroy everything left...... and all the Goza mats. This is MUCH easier to do in the EC where you can actually with pinco's set a filter to just show Goza mats... when you control shift.... or only Soulforge tiles...... anyway it's kinda a pain but it was WELL worth the effort.

Painfully I traded my Castle so.... now it's the property of the lucky guy who owns it.

Ok I was also asked about a step by step to making the seriously cool soulforge that is on the other tower there..... Painfully I traded my Castle so.... now it's the property of the lucky guy who owns it.

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Would really love to see it, Mal... Any chance you could go take a screenshot of it for us?

What I'd really, really like to do is to make a gaza "floor" over my entire castle and create a really big garden... Trees, grass, paths, ponds, rustic benches, etc... Like Endrik did, except less "formal"...
My question is: How do I start so that I don't get half done and realize something is wrong and have to start over... And would it be possible to extend this "floor" to all 4 walls? I understand this will be a big project and would like to NOT make a mistake that would cost me sufficient time and energy so that I gave up... Below is what Endrik did:

I know that some of you, like MalagAste (and I hope she weighs in here) know how to go about doing this and I'd really appreciate your advice...
Thx

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

It is possible to do something like this with one big floor covering the entire castle. I have done this with my Castle on Ice Island pictured below. I am afraid I have not had much time to get on and decorate or give tours lately (busy with school, work, and baby). But here is a picture of what I have so far to give you some ideas. The best piece of advice I can give you is to start on the North-East corner and work out from there. It is a lot easier to keep track of tiles from that perspective.

I am still trying to figure out what I want to do with this much open space; I am thinking about collecting as many ice-white plants as possible and doing some kind of snow-garden. I have also considered turning it into some kind of community center for guild events that way someone can put it to use since I am not on all that much these days. But I am open to suggestions.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

lol, you got it. I actually just set the teleporter so anybody can access it. Once you teleport inside there will be another teleporter in the NE corner of the center room that will take you directly to the rooftoop, or you can take the ladders up on the roof. Feel free to look around. As I mentioned; I am not even close to finished decorating and am open to any suggestions people might have.

Would really love to see it, Mal... Any chance you could go take a screenshot of it for us?

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Look up on post #7 It'll be in the South West Corner..... a velvet black soulforge with a plain forge center...

Someone had asked about the spiny ball on the SE corner. But what I was showing was how I had filled in the centers of each of the open courtyards with gozas and built gardens in them. That was a massive undertaking I'm not likely to ever repeat. however it turned out VERY nice.

Ahhh, when you said it was on the "other tower" I thought you meant a different property... Thanks... And yes, it is "seriously cool"... I'm guessing you used Shadow ingots to get it black?

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If you make the soul forge deed out of anything but plain boards, you can use something like the natural or Tokuno dyes on the soul forge deed to change the color of the soul forge. However, you have to dye the deed BEFORE it is used the first time. Of course, if you use something other than plain boards and don't dye the deed before first use, the soul forge will be the color of the boards you used.

The carpenter needs to have GM carpentry and 75 imbuing to craft a soul forge deed. Without logging in to check, I think you use 150 boards, 150 ingots, and 1 relic fragment when you make them and the success chance without wearing a talisman is 50%, so having extra boards, ingots, and relic fragments to account for failures is a must.

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